Overheating...

[Da Londo]

Great to hear you guys got it fixed, I think this one is a good lesson for all of us.
And maybe the most important thing is to believe in finding a cure, how many of our little are abandoned while the problem could have been fixed easily.

Great job and great to see so many on here looking for a solution.

United we stand.... or something in that region....

[Rusty's Uncle]

Good to hear that you got it sorted but you did not say what caused the damage inside the distributor cap 

[dadandlad]

I could not see any reason for the damage in the distributor cap
I can only assume it has had a wrong rotor arm fitted at some point as it has milled a slot through the segments a couple of mm deep

[Bambino126]

So was it stalling because of a badly adjusted exhaust valve clearance, or a damaged dizzy cap?

[Bar Vitelli]

This car is now fixed! We thought we had fixed it but then it broke down again and although we kept on trying it began to seem impossible. I dare not post because that in itself became stressful in spite of everyone's help.

We did, however, persist and kept trying a number of different things. In the end, after nearly 4 years of trying, we took it to some wonderful Polish people who managed to fix it inside 2 weeks!

I'm going to write and share a full summary because we learnt so many things through this whole experience and if that can help anyone else then that will be an added bonus!

We drove the car 87 miles home yesterday and it did not miss a beat. It runs better than any of my other cars which is great because it's actually my wife's car. Even better it's her 50th birthday next week and getting this fixed was my present to her which has earnt me endless brownie points!

I meant to write the summary yesterday but had too much G&T and have already overdone it on the red wine today! I'll get it written up next week and post it on here.

A big thanks to everyone who has helped me, especially the Polish people, to Rusty for his spare parts and sense of humour (I think we must be related!) and to Ladislav for his magnificent moral support and encouragement.

The key lesson is that these little cars are worth fighting for so if you have one don't ever give up!

 

[fixit]

wow what a thread, great forum help too, 

just wondered did you replace the earth lead from engine to body??

great to hear your car now goes a to b.
F

[Floored]

This car is now fixed! We thought we had fixed it but then it broke down again and although we kept on trying it began to seem impossible. I dare not post because that in itself became stressful in spite of everyone's help.

We did, however, persist and kept trying a number of different things. In the end, after nearly 4 years of trying, we took it to some wonderful Polish people who managed to fix it inside 2 weeks!

I'm going to write and share a full summary because we learnt so many things through this whole experience and if that can help anyone else then that will be an added bonus!

We drove the car 87 miles home yesterday and it did not miss a beat. It runs better than any of my other cars which is great because it's actually my wife's car. Even better it's her 50th birthday next week and getting this fixed was my present to her which has earnt me endless brownie points!

I meant to write the summary yesterday but had too much G&T and have already overdone it on the red wine today! I'll get it written up next week and post it on here.

A big thanks to everyone who has helped me, especially the Polish people, to Rusty for his spare parts and sense of humour (I think we must be related!) and to Ladislav for his magnificent moral support and encouragement.

The key lesson is that these little cars are worth fighting for so if you have one don't ever give up!

 

Did you get around to writing up what the Polish people did to fix it?   Hopefully your not still sozzled on red wine and G + T!. -)))

[Bar Vitelli]

I sat down and tried to write up a summary but I could not figure out exactly what they had done to fix it and I’m not sure that they knew for certain either! The language barrier was a challenge, the lead mechanic did not speak much english and I only know one word of polish which is fortunately the word for thankyou!

They went through an extensive process of elimination, doing all the things that we had already done, taking off the new parts we had fitted and putting the old ones back on, changing the oil for polish oil which was specifically imported as it was the only oil that they believed in! They were very excited by the indicator relay switch which was flashing faster than it should have been and for a while I thought that this was how they had fixed it but now believe that it has probably more to do with the polish coil (again specifically imported) and how they have fitted it, bypassing the distributor and feeding directly to the spark plugs.  I did not even think that this was possible but the engine runs so smooth and beautiful I’m not going to change it!

The whole experience from start to finish was exhausting but I’ve learnt so much about ‘overheating’ and how to diagnose it that it has definitely been worth it! I’m not very mechanical but I’m much more able to diagnose and even spot things that trained mechanics would miss because of my acquired knowledge of these little cars and even managed to fix one myself recently!

[Bar Vitelli]

Here’s a picture of us picking it up, we drove 84 miles there in the green car before driving the 84 miles back in convoy to horn toots all the way!